A Crime of Passion
by celestial-sonneteer
Summary: (Set between The Hounds of Baskerville and The Reichenbach Fall) Sherlock and John take on a case of serial murders connecting people only alike in age and gender. But how did they die and who killed them? And what does Moriarty have to do with all of this?


A Crime of Passion

[1]

Last week, Sherlock flipped through the newspaper looking for a case while I composed a blog post – a typical morning at Baker Street for the two of us. The newspaper rustled constantly and distracted me from my writing.

"Find anything," I asked Sherlock.

"It's been a slow week."

"Slow? We watched on the news yesterday that foreign policy minister got himself tangled up in that scandal with-"

"The Belgian financial officer."

"I thought you didn't care about politics."

"I don't," my friend agreed. He went back to reading before continuing. "It's the only thing that the news will talk about and I will not watch any of that other drivel that passes for entertainment these days. It's obviously not the Belgian, even though the media thinks so."

"How? I don't understand."

"Of course not."

I tapped away on my keyboard and Sherlock read for a few more minutes before he groaned discontentedly and tossed the paper on the floor. I looked up and saw his lanky body curled up in his chair facing the wall. His hands rested atop his knees while his toes tapped out an erratic rhythm on the leather.

I sighed and saved a draft of my post before walking over to him and picking up the paper from the floor. He was right: nothing too interesting was happening in the greater London area that day. I flipped through the travel section and the book reviews before I finally found something of note in the technology section.

"How about this, Sherlock," I started. "'Company confidentiality threatened by a new species of superhackers.'" The headline didn't stir any excitement in my friend but I continued to read the article anyway. "'College students in South London have reportedly cracked the code that unlocks records from the country's biggest businesses, exposing records of payment from various-'"

"Dull!"

"It could topple a financial system! You call that dull?"

"Save it for Lestrade."

"He doesn't even work in that area. Come on, Sherlock, just take the case."

He turned to look at me with narrowed eyes. "You know I can't just 'take the case,' John. I need something special. I need a challenge! Something that'll drown out the boredom for maybe another week. Get me a case!"

The next few days went the same as that, with Sherlock growing more and more restless as time went on. I kept a close watch on him, afraid that he'd either take his frustration out on our wall again or turn to drugs like Mycroft said he would. In all my time knowing the man, Sherlock had never brought the issue up himself. Rather, Mycroft took me aside on a few occasions to inform me about his younger brother's past, entrusting me as his brother's keeper for reasons I didn't understand at the time. But soon enough, I realized he needed someone who could stand him to keep him from hurting himself again.

On Friday afternoon, I arrived home to see a police car parked outside of 221B Baker Street. "What's he done this time," I muttered as I mounted the stairs. Contrary to my beliefs, he wasn't receiving a warning, or not the one I thought he was getting. Lestrade stood in the doorway facing Sherlock who sat in his chair, the tips of his fingers rested against their twins as he listened.

"How many?"

"Second one we've found this week. There have been more, but those were a few weeks ago. They seemed like regular murders, nothing special," Lestrade answered. "All are female and over twenty-five."

"And why is it so important that I help?"

"Nobody's touched them. There wasn't a single foreign print or hair on them."

"Boring."

Lestrade furrowed his eyebrows read from his BlackBerry. "First victim, found 20 February after going missing for a year. Aged thirty-three. Second victim, found 1 March in a tube station. Aged twenty-seven with no known relatives. Fourth victim, dies at a pub on 6 March while out with her boyfriend. Another died last Saturday in her home and was found dead by her husband the next day. She was forty-five. Finally, the most recent victims. The first, Phillipa Crompton, aged thirty-seven, collapsed while walking her dog. The second, Andrea Morgan-"

"What's so difficult for you to understand about this," Sherlock snapped. "Go figure it out yourselves."

"Sherlock," I started, but Lestrade stopped me.

"Cause of death was the same for both of them. Heart attack, but that's absurd. Both women were at risk, but the risk wouldn't manifest itself into anything dangerous for ten years at least. Molly suggested poison, but she needs your assistance. This is a serial murderer; I'm sure of it."

Sherlock sighed but stood up anyway. "John can help Molly. They're both doctors."

"She wanted you there, too."

"We'll take the case," I said.

"What case? There is no case! Obviously, these women have severe medical issues or consumed the same poison or something, although there aren't many that should cause heart attacks, the only ones are so ancient that..." Sherlock trailed off and his eyes widened. He pushed past both Lestrade and me, running towards the door.

"I thought this wasn't a case," I asked.

"Wasn't a case? John, this is exactly what I've been waiting for," he called from the bottom of the steps. I turned to Lestrade who nodded curtly to me and followed Sherlock out the door.

[2]

We arrived in the morgue within twenty minutes and were greeted by Molly Hooper, the mortician. The air inside the room was cold and sterile and smelled slightly of bleach. Two metal tables stood in the centre of the room, each topped by a white sheet and a dead body.

Molly Hooper had her mousy hair tied up on her head. "Greg said you two would come. Here are the bodies." She stood between the two tables and presented them to us. "The one on the left is the thirty-three year old and the one on the right is the twenty-seven year old."

"How fresh are these?" my companion asked, brushing his latex-gloved finger over an exposed arm.

"A few days old at most. They came in on Wednesday."

He looked at the two women carefully, picking up wrists and examining the hands, using his magnifying glass to decipher who they were and what brought them to the examination table of the morgue. He spent extra time examining the younger woman, going as far as taking a sample of her cells despite their death a few days prior.

"John."

I looked up.

"I want you to tell me why these women died."

"You heard Lestrade earlier. He said-"

"I know what he said; I just don't trust whoever he had on the job."

Molly's smile faltered.

"I'm sure that whoever did the autopsy did a wonderful job."

"I trust _you_, John. You just need to cut into their hearts and check their aortas for me."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't see what's not to understand. Just open up their hearts for me while I run some tests on the cells upstairs."

Sighing, I changed into scrubs and started working on the twenty-seven year old first. Molly assisted me in cutting the body open, but there wasn't much to say with a corpse between us. We finally made it to her heart, only to find that the aorta was nearly sealed with some crystalline substance.

"What is that," Molly asked.

"The remnants of a poison," said Sherlock's voice from behind us.

Molly jumped. "Sherlock!"

"Their aortas are sealed by malshade: poison almost forgotten in time that this woman would never have the chance to learn about or even make if she was just an average, run of the mill person like the thirty-seven year old divorcée who, by the way, has nothing to do with this case. Rather, the thirty-seven year old died in the wrong place at the wrong time under unfortunate circumstances. The journalist, however, shows promise."

"Divorcée," I asked. "How could you tell?"

"Her hand of course."

"Her hand?"

"There are two tan lines on her left ring finger. Faint, yet detectable, showing that there once were two rings there, but they were removed only recently, preserving the tan. Overall, her hair was unkempt, something that she would have been worrying about if she had been going out. But, she hadn't been going out. Her back is crooked from prolonged angular contortion, generally caused by sleeping on couches or in any sort of chair. Now, this behaviour stems from being a house guest or generally unwelcome somewhere, meaning that it was her husband who kicked her out and not the other way around. As demonstrated by stretch marks on her abdomen, she's had trouble keeping weight off, but has relapsed into a weight of around ten and one-half stones, a seven-pound increase from the end of her marriage. She sits on her couch and watches horrible television everyday instead. She knows nothing about these murders."

"That's amazing!"

Sherlock ignored my comment and walked back to the younger of the victims. He examined her hands once more and his eyes lit up. He took his phone from his pocket, read a text message, sent one in response, and pocketed it once more.

"We're done here, John."

"Done? You haven't figured anything out about the case!"

"On the contrary, I have all the information I need. Go back up to the lab and collect the papers and records I have next to the microscope. I'll call a cab. Molly, you can stitch her back together, correct?"

She opened her mouth to respond, but Sherlock walked out before she could ask.

I apologized on behalf of my friend and thanked Molly for her help before stopping off in the lab to get what Sherlock asked for. Sherlock waited for me in a cab outside. I climbed in and sat next to him and the car pulled from the curb to join the flow of traffic.

"Where are we going?"

"The main offices for _The Sun_."

"_The Sun_? Why?"

"The important one does book reviews. It's obvious, isn't it?"

I shook my head. "They're both important, Sherlock. They both are people!"

"One is relevant and the other is a fluke. There's nothing to be said about the irrelevant. You understand why, don't you?

"No, Sherlock, I don't," I replied, exasperated.

"You look at her and see a young woman, that's all. You don't see what I see. I see a girl in a job she wants to fit into so badly but can't possible fit in because of her boring personal life and obvious lack of money. She also has a small dog."

"Bloody hell," I whispered. "But how-"

"Because I can see, unlike the rest of the world."

I stared at him, bewildered, and he stared out the window.

"I knew she was an avid reader from her hands: they exhibited paper cuts on the pads of her fingers, the part of the hands that most people turn pages with. Her fingers were stained with ink, and not just any ink, but newspaper ink. Obviously, reading and newsprint equal book reviews, but the question is where and why now, isn't it? Her skin – impeccably perfect days after her death – suggests expensive beauty products and the so-obvious fake tan. Also, her clothing."

"She wasn't wearing clothing, Sherlock. She is a cadaver."

"Lestrade," he said, showing the screen of his phone to me. A photo of the girl on the night she died was illuminated on the screen. She lay face up on her sitting room floor. "Her skirt has been hemmed multiple times, but her blouse is new and expensive. You can see that she appears to be wearing a real pearl necklace, but they're false pearls. She attempts at elegance, but ultimately fails where it counts. She wants to look sophisticated and succeeds from a quick glance. Her boyfriend didn't have the money to buy her real pearls, so she pretends not to notice they're fakes. All the other girls in the office have real pearls and she wants to pretend that she fits in with them when she doesn't. A new writer for book reviews at _The Sun_ in a steady and boring relationship."

"You got all of that out of looking at her for a few moments?" I asked.

"Lestrade mentioned the dog," Sherlock admitted.

[3]

The offices at _The Sun _were filled with disinterested journalists and unhappy secretaries.I approached Andrea Morgan's boss and asked for access to her most recent reviews. It was always different to gather information and solve cases on my own, even if Sherlock was just off investigating something also pertinent to the case. Instead of visiting the offices, Sherlock was off examining the body of another victim: a woman, this time in her late forties. He dropped me off in front of the building and drove off to the crime scene.

The victim had all of her reviews saved to a sleek iMac in a cubicle down the hallway. Her boss led me to the workstation and left me with the master pass code to break into the files. She hadn't been on the paper for a while, since few reviews showed up and even fewer were over four months old. There wasn't anything special about her reviews. To my limited knowledge, they were ordinary reviews, filled with some plot description and a lot of criticism.

After reading a few of her pieces, I noticed a theme: Ms. Morgan mostly reviewed romance novels. The titles of the books she reviewed were humorous and I chuckled at a few of the worse ones. Soon enough, a younger man in a blue striped shirt leaned over the wall of the workstation.

"You're not Andrea," he exclaimed.

"John Watson," I greeted him. "Are you looking for her?"

"She hadn't been in work for the past few days. Is she alright?"

I frowned. "I'm afraid not."

"Oh."

"I'm sorry."

"What happened to her?"

I explained that she had died, but left out most other details. The man shook his head. "It's such a shame, that is."

I started reading another review before the man spoke again. "What are you looking for?"

"Reviews," I explained.

"You have all fifteen of them, right?"

I counted the icons on the screen. "No, there're only fourteen."

"Her... um... final piece was just published. But it's not accessible on these computers. I have a hard copy if you want it."

"Please," I asked and the man left only to bring back one a few minutes later. This was one of her more critical reviews, telling the public that no, this isn't as good of a book as the one she reviewed the week before. Too much magic and not enough shirtless Casanovas, she wrote. "May I have a copy of the reviews?"

"Of course." The man printed off a packet of paper for me. I received a text message while waiting for the documents to print:

Islington Library, front steps. Librarian in her late-forties, killed by sniper. Please hurry. – SH

The man handed me the pages of reviews and I thanked him before rushing out to catch a cab. My arms were overflowing with papers and books from the offices and the lab back at Bart's. Curious at what Sherlock might have been thinking, I paged through the papers he told me to pick up at the lab. Not much of it made sense: it was mostly information about bestsellers and computer hacking.

However, one of the books caught my eye. It was from the lab, yet had no connection to any of the other books Sherlock picked up. While all of the other books were on poison identification or related to science, this one was a romance novel. I was confused about why it was in the pile, unless Sherlock had deduced that Ms. Morgan reviewed romance novels. I opened the front cover to see the name "Molly Hooper" inscribed on the page. I laughed and decided that I'd return it to her tomorrow. There was much to be done and I wasn't sure how much time I had to do it all; the case sprouted many threads that hadn't weaved together yet.

The cab pulled up to the steps of the Islington Library and I was greeted by a cacophony of sirens and the sight of flashing lights. I ascended the steps to where a throng of people were crowded and spotted Sherlock examining something on the ground. After moving closer, I realized it was a body – a woman's body. Sherlock was crouched down and held his magnifying lens in his hand, closely looking at the woman's fingers.

"Ah, John," Sherlock said, spotting me. "Just the man I need. Could you please bend down and smell this woman's breath?"

I raised an eyebrow at Sherlock, fully knowing that he wasn't kidding. Sighing, I placed my pile of papers and books on the ground, bent down and sniffed. "Nothing peculiar about it," I commented. "Just smells like regular breath. It's slightly bitter from coffee."

"Precisely!"

"Were you checking for poison?"

Sherlock smiled a manic grin and walked away from the body. I caught up with him and we crossed the crime scene. "Now you're getting it, John! I can finish up here alone; why don't you bring that book back to Miss Hooper and I'll meet you back at Baker Street?"

"How did you-"

"Mr. Holmes," a police man interrupted me. "There's something you're going to want to see."

"What, what is it?"

"A bullet hole, Sir."

Sherlock's eyes lit up. He stopped in his tracks. "It seems I might need your assistance for a moment more. Care to help?"

"God, I'd love to," I said.

I hadn't looked at the woman closely when I first arrived on the crime scene. Rather, I was more interested in working the case out in my head. Nothing about this case seemed to connect anymore, now that this woman was killed with some sort of gun instead of with poison. She was lying on her right side, her head against the brick walkway at an awkward angle.

"We thought her head was smashed 'nd that's why she was lying here. The blood looked like it was coming from the fall, but you can see, Sir, that it's from lower down. The person who made this shot wasn't messing around: they were aiming to kill."

"Yes, yes," Sherlock waved the man away. I thanked him and he walked back to the cars at the bottom of the stairs.

Sherlock kneeled next to the body and donned examination gloves. He brushed back the victim's hair and examined at the bullet wound. "It's still lodged in her head," he commented as if talking about the weather. "You have a lot of experience with gun wounds."

"Hm?"

"As an army doctor, you've seen many battle wounds."

"Yes."

"And how good are you at identifying the gun from the wound it made?"

"Without the bullet, it's difficult. But I can try."

"Come." Sherlock pulled me down to look at the wound in the back of the woman's head. "Now, tell me. Police or military-issue?"

The hole was small, but defined in the centre of the woman's medulla oblongata. There was only one gun that could be that precise. "It's an AS50. Made for military use."

"But that means…"

"That means what, Sherlock?"

He shot up and ran to the doors of the library. Once he got there, he counted his paces from the door to the body and to the body back to the door. A few officers snickered and I shook my head. I caught him in the middle of one of his jaunts.

"You're still here?"

"Of course I am!"

"You don't need to be. You can head back to Baker Street or, better yet, to return Molly's book. I have a few things to attend to."

"How did you know it's Molly's book?"

"I saw the title in the car," he said. "No scientific manuals or guides would _ever_ have a title like that."

I turned and walked to the street, stopping to say goodnight to Lestrade. I'd be at Baker Street before eleven, hopefully. I hailed a cab and headed back to Bart's, eager to give the book back to Molly so I could return home to figure what Sherlock thought was behind the murders.

[4]

"Molly?"

"John! What a surprise. I didn't expect to see you this soon. I was getting ready to go," she said, pointing to the coat she was wearing.

"I wasn't expecting to be back here, either," I admitted. "But when I was upstairs gathering Sherlock's papers earlier today, one of your books made its way into the pile I was taking."

I presented the book to her and she blushed before snatching it from me.

"Where did you find this?" She squeaked.

"In the lab upstairs!"

"Oh, it must have fallen out of my purse."

"It must have. I'll be off."

"G-goodnight, John," she said.

My cab ride back to 221B was too long; I needed to get home to rack Sherlock's brain for answers to the case. The murder of that woman at the library was no accident. Either someone was trying to get the attention of the police, or else they didn't want our victim to get away. And then there was the poison. Now that made even less sense. Molly had said that the poison was old: Medieval old. So why would someone make it in twenty-first century London? And, furthermore, who would consume it? My thoughts strayed to my first case with Sherlock Holmes, where the murderer forced his victims to poison themselves. This time, the scenario was stranger. None of these were forced – the victims didn't show signs of a struggle or anything of the sorts. It's almost as if the victims dosed the poison for themselves.

We arrived at Baker Street and I went up to the flat where Sherlock sat at the kitchen table with my laptop. "Hello, John."

"What are you doing on my laptop?"

"Trying to solve this case. This part is giving me some trouble I have all of the threads, but I can't tie them together. Damn it!" He slammed his hand onto the table.

"I didn't think you would be so keen on solving it in two days."

"It should be simple! It should be really simple!

"Loose ends can take a while to secure. Go to sleep and think about it with a fresh mind tomorrow."

"I can't sleep now. Not with this still unsolved."

My mobile phone rang in my pocket and I fished it out. Sherlock snatched the device from my hand. "Molly, glad you called," he answered. They spoke for a few minutes and he hung up.

"What was that about?" I asked, taking my phone back.

"That was Molly, telling me that as she was reading the book you returned to her, she saw the recipe for the poison our victims were killed with.

"Really? How did they disguise it?"

"She didn't say. She expected me to know."

"What book was it again?"

"You know, that one with the tie on the cover."

"That one?" I asked. "Sherlock, Andrea Morgan did a review of that. You read the packet of reviews in the stack of papers I gave you, right?"

"Of course. That one was her latest. She didn't like it as much as she liked the…" His voice trailed off and a spark flared from behind his eyes. "Oh, it all makes sense now! Everything fits!"

"What just happened?"

"Oh, John, this is simple! Use your brain, eh?"

I frowned. "One minute you're moping over not solving the case and the next you've solved it. What's going on?"

"Think, John. Really think. We have the victims, all women who are over twenty-five. They've all read this book and came across a recipe. What kind of recipe would one find in a romance novel? Directions to make a homemade aphrodisiac! But, this wasn't supposed to be in the book. What author would want to kill off _their_ readers? Someone must have added this block of text with the directions as it was at the printing company. The question now is who would want to kill off readers of a romance novel."

"I don't know," I admitted.

"But I do!" Sherlock exclaimed. "Look here, John. Look in the packet of reviews from Ms. Morgan. She reviewed another novel before she died. That one got bad reviews; she hated it! Or maybe she hated the medieval theme. But, after doing a quick search on this author," he took out his phone, "I'm sure that we'll find that she is... oh, perfect!"

I tried to look at the screen, but Sherlock had it angled so I wouldn't be able to see it. "Linda Hunt, the author of the number two bestselling mass-market fiction novel in the United Kingdom, used to be a hacker. She fits all of our criteria! She must have hacked into the computers at the printing company and changed the manuscript of her competitor's novel at the last second."

"And the poison?"

"Were you even paying attention, John? Her novel was Medieval themed! She must have done research enough to find this long-forgotten poison so that she could disguise it as an aphrodisiac!"

I stared at Sherlock, dumbfounded. "So this author killed off readers of her competitor's novel. Why would she do that?"

Sherlock thought for a moment. "Well, books from the first printing often go to book reviewers and other people of note. But that doesn't make sense. John, did you observe anything peculiar about Molly's copy?"

"You're asking _me_ to remember what I've seen? I thought you thought I was too thick to see anything."

"Even regular people can be extraordinary sometimes. Now think, John. Close your eyes and try to picture the book."

I shut my eyes and thought back to when I had the book earlier today. "I can see the cover and the spine."

"Good, good. Now tell me: are there any other letters or words on it aside from the title and author?"

I furrowed my brow and thought as hard as I could. "I-I think so. Arc. The word arc is on the spine. Does that mean anything?"

"It means everything! That book was an advance reader's copy: one that only few people can get. No wonder the deaths are far and few in between! Only book reviewers and people who are connected to editors get to see those. Well, and other people too, apparently, because Molly and the other women got to read the copy that contained the recipe."

"What about the woman on the steps of the library?"

"She must have gotten a copy as well. But, as you confirmed, she wasn't poisoned (the poison has the distinct smell of rosewater and that scent was missing from her breath). She was out of range for her killer to have been in the library. You saw me counting paces earlier today. Instead, I deduced that she figured out that the aphrodisiac was poison and was running to call the police. But maybe Linda Hunt knew. She must have called a sniper to gun this woman down so her secrets would remain safe. And it succeeded. The victim was running away from the library and turned to look back at the building when the sniper fired from across the street, hitting her clear in the medulla oblongata, killing her almost instantaneously. She collapsed to the sidewalk and she remained that way until the police arrived."

"We need to find this woman. Now," I decided. "Before she can kill anyone else." Realization dawned on me. "But it's not her that's killing anyone," I whispered. "Her words are killing people and we can't stop them. We don't even know who she's going to target next!"

"Don't we?"

"She got people who gave her bad reviews and people who knew her secrets. Who else would she target?"

"Her competition. Obviously, she's going to murder the author of the number one romance novel. The book that's above hers on the bestseller list is the first in a trilogy. She knows that people don't like her books as much as they like her competitor's books and that they won't sell as many copies as she would like. So why not kill off the only thing that's keeping her from being a success?"

"We need to call Lestrade," I said. "He can find a way to get the books off of the market and to keep the other author safe."

Sherlock laughed. "The police can barely do anything. We need to alert the public."

"And won't telling Lestrade do that? This has to be in the news!"

"Oh, her arrest will be in the news, John. I'll make sure of it."

[5]

Sherlock ended up being right, as he normally is. The next day, we went to a Waterstone's in Kensington where Linda Hunt's greatest competition was scheduled to have a book signing. Sherlock said that Ms. Hunt was bound to show up there, that the odds of an attempted murder were through the roof. So we left the flat around noon to wait on a line to "get our books signed." We were towards the back of a long line of women, most of who arrived in groups of three or four.

Sherlock and I were the only men. His tall, dark presence stood above the shorter and livelier women and I can't help but wonder what people thought we were doing, waiting on line to get our copies of a bestselling romance novel signed.

We stood inside the constraints of our velvet rope-bordered line for half an hour before the author arrived. Sherlock and I awaited any sort of threat or activity by Ms. Hunt, but none occurred. Soon, the line began to move and Sherlock and I made our way to the table. Person after person met the author, a short, dark-haired woman, and got their copy signed.

I waited for a sign – for anything to tip me off to Ms. Hunt's presence. I wanted to end this now; to prevent anyone else from dying. Finally, when Sherlock and I were four people away from the front of the line, it happened. One of the women on line gave the author a piece of candy, citing she knew it was her favourite candy and that it said so on her website. The author thanked her and began to unwrap the piece of candy when I noted exactly what type it was: Turkish Delight. Apparently, Sherlock noticed this too, since he jumped over the velvet ropes to get the rosewater-flavored candy away from the author.

The security swarmed around us, but Sherlock and I broke free to chase Ms. Hunt, but she didn't move far. In the commotion, I lost track of where she went, but once I cleared past the security, I heard a woman screaming from behind a bookshelf nearby. Sherlock and I darted from aisle to aisle, searching for Ms. Hunt. Finally, I spotted the pair of women close to the back door. I pulled my gun and focused it at Ms. Hunt. The author cried out and Ms. Hunt turned to see us. She stopped and took a vial and syringe from her pocket.

Sherlock stopped in his tracks. "Linda, you don't have to do this."

Ms. Hunt glared at him and filled her syringe with the poison. I cocked my pistol and aimed it at Ms. Hunt, her attention now turned to me. "You wouldn't hurt me," she said, her manic smile not quite reaching her eyes. "You hurt me, you hurt her, too."

The author was on her knees, her body forced by Ms. Hunt's twisted grip on her arm to kneel. She was past the point of rational fear: her eyes were empty, her hands limp at her sides, and her body shook. The author whimpered and Ms. Hunt held the syringe closer to her arm. I'd seen this before, seen this look of fear on the faces of many. I wanted to forget it, but here it was, staring back at me.

"This woman won't get away with this," Ms. Hunt screamed. "She can't win!"

"What do you mean, Linda? Put the syringe down."

Ms. Hunt had tears streaming down her face. I heard sirens blaring outside the store.

"Either way, she wins," she whispered, and she moved the syringe to inject the poison. I aimed at her other shoulder and fired; the sound of the shot reverberated around the closed space. A few people in the front of the store screamed and the police swarmed in through the doors. Ms. Hunt laid face-down on the ground, her shoulder bleeding profusely. The author had moved away a few feet and sobbed, cradling her knees.

A few officers that I knew came up behind Sherlock and asked him what happened. He ignored them and we stepped closer to Ms. Hunt. She was crying, too. I rolled her onto her back and applied pressure to her wound.

"The bullet only grazed your arm, so you should be fine," I said. "Although for what you did to all those people, I'm not so happy about that fact."

"You might get your wish," she exclaimed. Her eyes glanced to her other arm and I saw the syringe impaled in her arm from her fall. The plunger was half-way deployed.

I looked up and saw Sherlock towering over me, his features dark and serious. "The poison is so potent that half a dose kills within ten minutes," he said.

The police surrounded the women and they led the author away. Lestrade stood over Ms. Hunt and glared down at her. "You've caused us a lot of trouble. He turned to me. "Can you deal with this, John? I'll be back in a few minutes." He clapped me on the shoulder and walked away.

I continued to apply pressure to her arm despite the annoyance I felt radiating off of Sherlock. "Tell me," he said to her, "jealousy?"

"It's not fair," she shouted, "that a _romance novel_ would do better than my award winning fantasy novel."

"I don't understand why yours even won awards," Sherlock commented. "It wasn't even good."

The woman's eyes widened and she screamed in pain, clutching her chest.

"But who was it," he asked suddenly, "that killed the librarian? I need to know. You have no experience with firearms and wouldn't ever dare to make that shot without any. Who was it?"

"My heart is racing," she yelled.

"Tell me!" Sherlock responded.

"Someone help me!"

"Not until you tell me who it was!"

Her breathing grew shallow and she knew her battle was lost. "Sebastian Moran!"

Sherlock turned solemn. "Thank you, Ms. Hunt," he said and turned on his heels to the front of the store. I followed him, leaving the medics to treat the woman that they couldn't save.

[6]

Sherlock and I arrived back at Baker Street a few hours ago. The events in the bookstore only occurred this morning, and we're both quiet now which is unusual for the two of us. Especially after a case like this.

He's been reading the paper incessantly, citing that he'd missed things all week when he was in his stupor. During the cab ride home, he explained that he'd hoped that Ms. Hunt hadn't hired Sebastian Moran as her hit man. Sebastian Moran, Sherlock said, is one of Moriarty's people. Sherlock and I haven't seen or heard about Moriarty since we narrowly escaped death-by-explosion last year.

But this has Sherlock scared and Sherlock's never scared. He's gone through five newspapers now, reading every article twice to pick up any information about our almost-killer. He didn't know that Moriarty has been active and Sherlock supposedly knows everything about everyone. He hasn't said anything in a while which, while normal in other circumstances, isn't a good sign tonight. And that has me scared to death.


End file.
